09x17 - Make It Rain

[bunniefuu]

Parker: there's not a lot
of time left in the season.

There's not gonna be
a whole lot of room for error.

Narrator:
on this "gold rush"...

This is a terrible [bleep] job.

Brennan: I'm excited.

There should be
some gold in here.

Bree:
there's a rip in the belt.

I'll take responsibility.

If this [bleep] up,
that's on you, brennan.

♪

Holy [bleep]
brian, shut it down!

We just blew a bunch
of gold through here.

Aah!

Oh, man, it's trying
so hard to go.

You guys, really, get out
of the way.

[ Laughs ]

Captions paid for by
discovery communications

♪

♪

♪

Ice in the cut.

What's that, dozer?

Narrator:
winter is coming to the yukon.

♪

This cut is pretty well
scraped up, boy.

I thought it would've lasted
longer, but it didn't.

It did not.

Narrator: parker schnabel
is chasing a 6,000-ounce,

$7.2-million season goal.

To get the 750 ounces
he still needs,

Sluicifer is running
300 yards an hour.

And at the other end
of the 61-acre cut,

Brennan is putting another
200 yards

An hour through big red.

We try and get
every little flake of gold

That we can find down here.

Narrator: but with four weeks
left in the season,

Brennan has mined all the thawed
pay dirt in the cut.

Brennan: well, I'm thinking

We're pretty close
to being done here.

And what's left
is what, frozen?

Yes, sir.

I remember when we first started
on this end, I was like,

"There's no way we'll get this
whole piece done this season,"

And now here we are
almost a month early.

Parker: where did all
the good gold come from?

In there, like,
in that spot.

Right, because this is
pretty high bedrock.

I wonder if it's worth just
going through it again,

Trying to get
what we can.

Yeah, for sure.

Just in case
there's some thawed ground.

All right.

I'll go get the ripper
on the hoe,

And you can load the [bleep]
out, and I'll rip it out.

I think we can get probably
another full shift

And then just make it
happen that way.

Okay.

We were just so far
behind this spring

That we just weren't able
to get ground open.

This was a big cut,
a million square feet.

With the kind of bills we've got
this season, we need the gold.

Narrator: plant boss, brennan,
has a personal reason

To get another
100 ounces out of the cut.

Brennan: it is a bummer
that we have no pay left.

I set a goal myself that I
want it to be a great season.

I really don't see that being
in the picture

Anymore that we ran
out of ground,

So, like, all this stuff
right now

Just looks like
it's completely done to me.

Narrator: last season
his predecessor, rick ness,

Narrowly missed mining
2,500 ounces with big red.

Surrounded by all this,
I'm not gonna shed a tear.

Narrator: brennan is now
just 93 ounces short

Of beating rick's record.

-Yeah!
-You guys are the best!

♪

Parker:
brennan is all worked up

About beating
rick's total from last year,

And we need every ounce
we can get right now.

I'm just gonna rip it
all up here,

And brennan can come in
and load her out.

Narrator: parker brings in
the devil's finger

In a last-ditch attempt to find
any thawed pay gravel

They've left behind.

This area where I'm ripping
right now,

The pay was really
good here, so...

This is a terrible
[bleep] job.

♪

There's some weird funky
[bleep] in this ground.

This one spot,
there's a bit of gravel,

And it's actually
pretty deep gravel.

This just keeps going.

I'm just barely hitting bedrock

With the full length
of this ripper in the ground.

It's a pretty deep hole.

There's a lot of pay here.

Pockets like this,
we don't find them too often,

But usually the cleanups
are really good

When you find
these kind of things,

Like a big natural
nugget trap.

Narrator: brennan stripped all
the pay from the cut.

But now parker has found
a dip in the bedrock.

Because it's the deepest point,

The pay dirt could
be loaded with gold.

♪

Getting a little excited.

That's full.

Brennan, you got a copy?

We missed a spot over here.

Brennan: oh, yeah?

Yeah, man, there's a nice
little pocket of pay.

It's, like, pretty deep,

Nice little nugget-hole
in the bedrock here.

Yeah, bud.

So I may have found you
some gold.

[Bleep] excited
to see what's going on.

Could be some gold,
baby!

♪

♪

Narrator: at eureka creek,
tony beets is struggling.

Dredge one is $1.5 million
down on last season.

Tony is failing on all fronts.

He's way behind parker
in the race to 6,000 ounces,

And his second dredge
is weeks behind schedule.

Short on man-power,
he's making a radical decision.

The only way tony
will get dredge two up

And running is to concentrate
his crew

And resources
on the massive rebuild.

That means winterizing
dredge one.

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: tony is excavating
a 4,000-square-foot dock.

He'll reposition two dozers
to serve as deadmen,

Then use the onboard winches

To maneuver the 350-ton dredge
backwards into position.

Finally, he'll drain the pond,

Leaving the dredge high
and dry for the winter.

[ Sneezes ]

[Bleep]

Yes. I don't know
how deep you dug,

But we'll find out
when we let it out.

I like to stay
on roads anyways.

Kevin: gonna let monica
move first.

Okay.

We're gonna move the deadmen.

Then we're gonna
pull ourselves back.

Narrator: daughter, monica,

Moves the d9 dozer
to the back of the dock.

Nice and gentle, chicky.

Drive straight, so you drag
the cables behind you.

The cables to the dozers
must be tight

Before kevin can winch
the dredge in.

Power out on the cables.

Can I start pulling
in the winches?

Oh, man, it's trying
so hard to go.

Tony: hey!

♪

What the [bleep]
was that?

Narrator:
tony beets is attempting

To dry-dock dredge one
for the winter.

We're gonna try it again,
see what happens.

♪

What was that?

The line is scraping
on something [bleep]

I think we're caught up
on our portside.

[Bleep]

Did you happen to dig up
the sand behind the dredge?

♪

Narrator: tony's challenge --
maneuver the 30-foot arm

Between the cables
and the sluice runs.

Kevin: wouldn't let anybody else
near it like that.

Aah!

Do not do that, please.

I really, really don't want
to [bleep] with that.

I like my run attached.
[Bleep]

We'll see what happens.

Oh, boy,
oh, boy, come on.

And we're slowly moving.

Finally we're getting
some progress here.

Yay
[bleep] done!

You guys want to head
over to dredge two?

-Okay.
-I'll be there momentarily.

♪

♪

♪

[ Laughing ]

Terry: we're just
doing circles.

People go insane up here,
it's so repetitive.

Narrator: four months into their
first season in the klondike,

Temperatures are dropping,

And rick's crew
is getting stir-crazy.

The weather is coming in.
We're dealing with frost.

We're dealing with
tired equipment, tired people,

And it's crunch time.

Narrator:
rookie mine boss, rick ness,

Has mined 845 ounces
of gold this season,

But he's still 155 short
of his 1,000-ounce goal.

Back when I was
playing football, you know,

You try and play smart all game,
but at the end if you're down,

And you don't have
much time left,

You get desperate.

End of the season
is gonna be that way.

It's not gonna be easy.

We're gonna have to just
bully our way through it.

Narrator: after three weeks of
plummeting gold totals,

Rick has resorted
to desperate measures

To hit his season target.

Rick: opened up this upstream
cut here,

You know, this is my last hope
for the season.

Terry: we're getting the dirt
out of here.

We're getting it moved.

Most importantly,
my trucks are moving.

♪

Narrator: ben and zee haul
the pay dirt 1/2 mile

From the new upstream
cut to the plant.

This [bleep] road
sucks so [bleep]

♪

[Bleep]
hey, water all over

[Bleep] damn it.

Narrator: ryan is responsible
for keeping dirt reynolds fed.

♪

♪

Everything has been working.

Holy [bleep]

Ryan, shut it down!

[Bleep]

♪

Tailings are all the way back
in the [bleep] sluice box.

We're losing gold.

Shut that thing down.

♪

Tailings are backed up halfway
into the box, man.

We just blew a bunch
of gold through here.

I knew it was getting bad
but not that bad.

That happened fast.

Narrator: as water carries
the concentrate

Down through the sluice box,

The heavy gold gets caught
in the expanded metal riffles.

But the tailings have backed up
into the sluice boxes,

Blocking the riffles
and causing the gold to wash

Straight out
into the tailings pond.

♪

Man: I never seen it
like that before.

That ain't [bleep] good.

We just lost everything
from here down.

Narrator: this season,
rick has run

Nearly a quarter of a million
yards of dirt,

And the tailings have filled
the 60-foot-deep pond.

The hole
doesn't last forever.

Eventually it fills up.

I think the only option
is to move this plant.

I don't even want to think about
moving this wash plant

Right now.

Zee: you don't think moving it
towards the upstream cut,

Make it efficient
that way?

But you remember when
we set the thing up?

Sluice boxes falling off,
[bleep] bank washing out.

Rick: shut it off.
Shut it off.

Shut it off.
Shut it off.

Hit the bypass!

What the [bleep]?

♪

If absolutely everything
went right,

We're gonna lose a day.

If anything goes [bleep]
wrong, we could lose 4 days.

We can't lose that
this time of year.

It's gonna get colder,
[bleep] snow,

And the gold is going
to get harder and harder to get.

Trucking all that material
up here is a real [bleep]

Terry: that road going back
to the upstream cut

Right now
is horrible.

We're just gonna have
to suck it up and deal with it.

And we don't really have
the personnel to be keeping up

With these tailings
all day every day.

We can dig tailings
while the plant is running.

We can't move the plant
while the plant is running.

We just have to get
more efficient.

That's all there is to it.

We got to try.

Are we good?

We got to do
what we got to do.

I'll get this box cleaned out.

Terry, if you guys can go down
there, keep getting pay up here.

We'll keep this plant running,
and we can make all this work.

We ain't gonna lose a [bleep]
minute of sluice time.

I'll dig a little hole
to get started,

And then we're going
to make this work.

Man #2: all right.

♪

♪

Brennan:
well, woke up this morning,

And it's minus 6 out,
so it's pretty chilly.

Starting to feel like
the beginning of the end.

Narrator: big red is almost out
of thawed pay.

Brennan is digging out
a final pocket.

It gets bigger and bigger,
so that's a good sign

That there should be
some gold in here.

Narrator:
as the big red plant boss,

He's just 93 ounces
short of beating

Rick ness' record
from last year.

I'm hoping that this hole
is just loaded with gold

And I can actually
destroy his record.

That would be pretty damn sweet.

I just want to try and make sure
we're done sluicing

By the end of the day
so maybe we can do the cleanup.

Yippy ki-yay [bleep]

♪

Narrator:
loader operator bree

Still has over 200 yards
left to run.

[Bleep]

We're all here for a reason.

We all love mining, and we want
to see brennan reach his goal.

♪

♪

♪

Aw [bleep]

Hey, parker,
you got to come over here.

There's a [bleep]
rip in the belt.

♪

Parker: what's up?

It's, like, a 2-foot
strip missing

Out of the elevator belt.

There's pay
spilling everywhere.

Oh, yeah [bleep]

What did you do?

That's probably
just a matter of time

Before that goes
the whole length of the belt.

Yeah, I'd say.

So what do you want to do?

We can truck the rest of this
[bleep] up to sluicifer.

I want
to finish this off, man.

I want to beat rick's record.

If we shut this down,
that ain't gonna happen.

We don't run it
when it's partly [bleep]

And wait for it to get
totally [bleep]

I understand that.

Like, that's
tony beets' land.

If you want to just run [bleep]
until it destroys itself,

I'm sure
he has a job opening.

There's an hour of pay left.
I know it's a big risk.

I'll take responsibility.

I want to see what the [bleep]
happens here.

Okay, okay.

All right.
All right.

Anything more than five
flexcos to fix that,

Which is all
it would take right now

Is coming out
of your [bleep] bonus.

All right.

If this [bleep] up,
that's on you, brennan.

All right.
Good enough.

All right. Well, we'll finish
the day off, bree.

♪

You know, we only got
that little bit of a pile left.

It might be an hour,
so let's just hope it holds up.

We've already made it
half a shift,

And let's see what the [bleep]
those holes have to offer

That we were digging out
all day.

♪

Narrator:
to focus all his efforts

On rebuilding dredge two,

Tony must first haul
out the jasmine b.

Over winter,
the yukon river freezes

As temperatures drop
below minus 40 degrees.

To avoid losing his boat
to the ice,

Tony has to act fast.

Tony doesn't have the equipment
they need in a boatyard,

So every haul-out
he's had to improvise.

Man #3: holy [bleep]
stop!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, tony!

Yeah, go ahead.

Narrator: together the two winch
cables on tony's oshkosh

Can haul up to 50 tons,

But the jasmine b
is much heavier at 60 tons.

By adding pulleys and anchoring
the cables to the ramp,

The winches will have to
pull twice as far,

But the trade-off is, it will
double their pulling power,

A process called
mechanical advantage.

Right now it's unproven.

We've tried pulling the boat
out with a single line.

It didn't do it.

I'm just hoping that
doubling them up helps it

And we can actually
get it on the ramp.

♪

It's not july anymore, eh?

Narrator: mike adds his own
low-tech solution,

Lubricate the ramp
with dish soap.

Mike: man, this [bleep] hard
to squeeze when it's cold.

♪

I'm gonna k*ll my engines.

Narrator: tony puts his new
system to the test.

Hey, watch your south
when it pulls.

Cameraman, please get out
of the way.

You guys, really,
get out of the way.

Narrator:
being hit by a recoiling cable

Could cause fatal injury.

Get out of the way, out of the
way, completely out of the way.

When those [bleep] cables snap,

They come whipping out.

Tony!

Hey!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

Hold on, whoa,
whoa, whoa!

Holy [bleep]

Narrator: one of the 250-pound
pulleys has caught on the ramp.

Man #4: we bent the hell
out of that.

-Did we hurt it?
-I don't think so.

Watch your fingers.

Get out of there.

Get out of there.

♪

[Bleep] [bleep]

There we go.

♪

♪

Whoa!

♪

♪

Finally, after four years
we've done it.

I'm almost crying here.

♪

♪

We can't afford to be
losing any gold.

We need all that we can get.

Narrator: at quartz creek,

Tailings are backing up
into the sluices.

It's important for us to keep
the fine tailings

From building up
like that again.

That's an easy way to blow gold
right out the end of it.

Narrator:
to avoid losing any more gold,

Rick has opened up a section
of the tailings pond

And doubled down
on ryan's workload.

The only solution is to find
a way for ryan

To keep running
this thing himself.

We're gonna have to add
a step into the process here.

Load the hopper,
get a scoop of coarse tailings.

We're also gonna have
to start scooping out the fines.

If we can get these fine
tailings under control

With the loader,
it should be good

For the rest of the season.

That's just flat-out
the only way, it really is.

Narrator: ryan is
the least-experienced operator

On the crew.

Ryan: right at the start
of the season,

I had some things to learn.

Holy [bleep]

Ryan, you all right?

I should have [bleep] moved
when I wanted to [bleep] move.

Narrator: now ryan has to keep
the hopper feeder full,

Clear away the coarse tailings
from the end of the trommel,

Then head down to the bottom
of the sluices

To prevent the fine tailings
from backing up.

Ryan: I don't know.

It's gonna take me a while
to get the hang of doing this.

Rick: nothing that we've done
this year has been ideal.

But this is not rocket science,
but it is adding another step.

So, you know,
it's a short distance.

It should be doable.

Ryan: I filled the hopper.

I've got 7 minutes to move
coarse tailings...

...dump the coarse tailings...

...and now
move fine tailings, too.

I don't know if I can keep
ahead of this.

We've wandered out into the fine
tailings in front of the plant.

We spent way too long.

Ryan: we're not even making
a dent in those tailings.

I can't even get a full
scoop of them.

Narrator: rookie ryan
is losing the battle.

If he can't keep up,

They'll blow even more gold
out of the sluices.

I'm watching him up there
all the time just struggle.

[Bleep] this, man.

Ben: I mean, if he can't keep up
with that,

If he wants a nice, cushy job,

There are people here
that can replace him.

Ryan: really getting sick
of dealing with this.

It's too [bleep] much right now.

This ain't as easy as he said
it was gonna be.

♪

[Bleep]
I just hit the sluice box.

[Bleep] this, man.
[Bleep]

♪

What's up, ryan?

I'm just getting a little
overwhelmed here.

Maybe I'll swap out with you
for a minute,

See if I can find
anything different to do

Or find a rhythm
or something.

Hopefully rick can give me
an idea

How to keep ahead
of everything,

Figure something out
to make this work.

I mean, this is about
as important as it gets.

All of our gold is coming
out of that wash plant,

So you got
to take care of it.

You got to run it right.

He hasn't been doing this
for long.

I know he can do it.

It's just finding a rhythm.
You know what I mean?

You come up here
and fill the hopper.

Go get a scoop
of coarse tailings.

Dump them off the ramp.

Carefully move yourself
into the fine tailings

Without getting stuck.

Narrator:
rick drives into the fines,

Gets a scoop of tailings,

And backs straight out

In less than half the time
it took ryan.

He's doing the tailings
different than I was.

He's driving
right back out.

I think
that's the trick.

And I think that's probably
where I'll make up my time.

Whoo!
Loading the flat, yeah!

Whoo!

Whoo!

I heard him in there
yelling and screaming.

He hasn't done it
for 11 hours.

Sounds to me like
you're having the time

Of your life up in here.

Well, and you're moving them
differently than I was.

Yeah.

And I can see where
that's gonna save time.

You know what? I got us
a little bit ahead here.

I think I'll be okay.

[Bleep] yeah.
I know you will, ryan.

Good luck, buddy.

Rick: you know, he doesn't
have to stress out.

He's doing really well,

And honestly I think
that's all it was.

It was just in his head.

You know, he's over-stressing

Because we added
another step to the process,

But, you know,
he's fully capable of this.

Ryan: I was able to see a little
bit different technique

He was using to keep
those fine tailings clear.

Sometimes just
a different perspective

Is all you need
to figure out a problem.

Nothing ever comes easy
when you're gold mining.

♪

Narrator: while tony beets has
been dry-docking dredge one

And the jasmine b,

Monica's wash plant
and the pearson box

Have been running 24/7.

Hey, monica.
How are you?

Hey, beets.

Narrator: it's time
for the weekly gold weigh.

How many hours are
on the plants?

Kevin: they're both
about 150-ish.

So I think we should
maybe weigh some up.

Let's do monica's plant.

Kevin can count that one.

Narrator: to hit his
6,000-ounce, $7.2-million goal,

Tony needs over
600 ounces a week.

20, 40, 60, 80,
100, 110, 120,

140, 160, 180,
190, 200,

220, 230, 240,
250, 253.46.

Worth over $300,000.

Minnie: mm-hmm.

10, 20, 30, 40, 50,

60, 70, 80, 90, 100,

120, 140, 160,

180, 190, 196.36.

Narrator:
worth another $235,000.

So what does that leave us
with this week, mom?

449.82 is our total
for this week.

Narrator:
over half a million dollars

But still 150 ounces
short of what they need.

What's our total then?

4,025 Ounces and a little bit,

So we're way over
what we had last year.

We're about 400 ounces
over what we had last year.

[Bleep] yeah!

Both: bla-bla-bla-bla.

Narrator: they've beaten
last season's record,

And finally tony can focus
on his second goal.

So give me a couple more
of those jars, will you?

Bye, guys.
-[ Speaks foreign language ]

You guys got a copy?

Go for ryan, zee.

I got some bubble guts.

Again?

You've got to be kidding me.
Again?

Hey, carl,
you got a copy?

Yeah, what's up, man?

Zee keeps
having problems.

Think
you can help him out?

Oh, yeah, buddy,
I can do that for him.

All right.

I'll be the rock truck
screaming down the runway

At 40 miles an hour.

Yeah!

-Good luck, poopy pants.
-Whoo!

Sweet. Awesome.

♪

The main thing is we kept
the plant going, right?

Narrator: in his rookie season,
rick ness has set a 1,000-ounce,

$1.2-million target.

Let's see what that got us.

Narrator: to reach his goal,

He's banking on the new
upstream cut

Delivering 39 ounces a week.

Rick:
let's see where we're at.

We got 10, 20,

30, 40, 50.

All right.
We got 52.15.

Narrator:
worth over $62,000.

-Yeah.
-Yeah! Way better.

Man #5:
on the way back up.

Rick: all that means is
we're back in the [bleep] game.

Karla, where does that
put us for a total?

It's 897 ounces.

That's almost 900!

-Yeah!
-Yeah!

Whoo!

We're 100 ounces
from our goal,

And that's a [bleep]
awesome feeling,

But the next 100 ounces
is gonna be 100...

Toughest 100 ounces
we get all year.

You think we have
enough time left?

We've got enough time,
but it's not gonna be easy.

[Bleep] gonna freeze.
[Bleep] gonna break.

But you know what?
We're gonna persevere,

And at the end
of the [bleep] day,

We're gonna
leave here victorious.

Right?
-Rally!

Thanks, guys, appreciate it.

♪

♪

It's time to finish it off,
tear it down,

Get the final gold out
and see what this...

What the pay has
to do for us here.

Narrator: at the last cut,

Brennan is making big red's
final push for gold.

So there's a big strip
ripped off of the belt.

It's not ideal to run like this,
but brennan really wants

To get everything
out of that hole he found.

Narrator:
he's been running a broken belt,

Gambling that it will
hold out long enough

To finish
the last of the pay.

Done.

My belt didn't [bleep] up.

Shut the shaker down.

k*ll the water.

Can't believe that thing
[bleep] lasted.

Narrator: after 14 weeks,
2,000 hours of run time

And 400,000 yards of dirt
processed,

Big red shuts down
for the final time this season.

We'll find out what was
in that nugget hole.

Hopefully it pays off
and it was worth the chase.

Narrator: it's time to see
if brennan's pay pocket

Has delivered a final bonus.

Well, now that you're
done sluicing,

Maybe there's a rock truck
for your future.

Brennan: is that how it goes
around here?

Well, by looks of the pan,
you had a good week.

Yeah.

Go ahead, d.,
Two-fist that baby.

Narrator: first up, parker's
biggest plant, sluicifer.

60 And 100, 140...

Brennan: wow.

...190, 200,

290, 300, 330.

Give it a tap there.

345 1/2 Ounces.

-That's awesome, man.
-Good job, man.

That's a nice pan of gold
right there.

Narrator: worth $415,000.

Holy that's a pile.

Why don't you throw it
on the scale there, junior,

And we'll see what we got.

What did big red
do last year?

So last year,
big red did 2,480.

I hope even if it's 2,481,

I'll be happy just to say
I beat him.

Yep.

And right now you are at 2,386.

It looks like
it's gonna be close.

So did I kick rick's a*s
or what?

There's 20, 50, 70, 80,

100...

113.1.

Whoo!

Narrator: bringing brennan's
big red season total

To 2,499 ounces,

Worth $3 million.

Holy smokes.

He's beaten rick by 19 ounces.

Honestly, brennan,
good job down there, you know?

Appreciate it.

For the most part,
you were left on your own,

And you guys made
the most of it.

It was really great
to see.

The week's total
is 458.6 ounces,

And a season total of 5,706.

Yeah.

Narrator:
worth almost $7 million.

Parker is just 294 ounces
from achieving his 6,000-ounce,

$7.2-million season.

Honestly, I didn't think
there was a shot

That we'd get to 6,000,

And now it's looking
pretty good.

Not that I want to take our foot
off the throttle,

But it looks good.

Like, you guys
have been k*lling it.

All right.
Get the hell out of here.

Yep.

Rick: there is still gold
in the ground, man,

And there's still
time to get it.

Narrator:
on the next "gold rush"...

Ryan: this frozen pay
is clogging the feeders.

You're on your own.
Figure it out.

[Bleep]

Ryan: I'm about ready
just to walk away.

[ Clanging ]

Oh, that's not
a good sound.

So let's just shut
the [bleep] show down.

We're done for the season.

Nancy: it's your land.
You've put the time in it.

You've put the money in it,
and you're gonna still

Have to try to work
with him on this.

Hi, tony.